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JAKE DANNA STEVENS / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s Antoan Richardson is safe at first base after a high throw to Durham first baseman Vincent Belnome at PNC Field on Monday.

RailRiders’ pitcher Chase Whitley throws against the Durham Bulls at PNC Field on Monday.

MOOSIC — Baseball games last nine innings.

To Dave Miley, only one of them mattered Monday.

“Sixth inning was the ballgame,” the frustrated skipper said, staring with a scowl at the box score resting on his desk.

The sixth inning. It turned a potentially great homestand into a merely very good one.

It turned an otherwise pleasant Monday afternoon into a real teeth-grinder for the RailRiders.

Three RailRiders fanned with runners on second and third and nobody out against reliever Jake Thompson in that sixth inning, the lowlight of a punchless offensive effort that led to a 2-1 win for Durham at PNC Field.

It had all the makings of the breakthrough inning for a RailRiders team that had been so effective in piling up late runs on the way to winning six of its first seven games against Indianapolis and the Bulls on the homestand.

Adonis Garcia beat out an infield hit to start things, and red-hot Zelous Wheeler laced a double that one-hopped the left field wall. Runners were at second and third. There were no outs. And to make things even better for the RailRiders, Durham manager Charlie Montoyo elected to play the infield back, exchanging the tying run for an out.

He never needed to, though.

Bearing down, Thompson got Hazleton native Russ Canzler to swing over a 1-2 slider for the first out. Austin Romine struck out on three pitches, the last being another slider, for the second. Then Antoan Richardson battled to a 2-2 count before swinging over another breaking ball.

Inning over. Threat over. They were the first three of 12 RailRiders in a row retired to close the game by Durham relievers.

“You’ve got second and third with nobody out. You’ve got to come up with something there,” Miley said. “I mean, quite honestly, if you put the ball in play, it’s a tied game. Didn’t happen. That’s as simple as it is.”

The RailRiders weren’t exactly setting offensive records in the Durham series despite the fact that they split it, or that the 6-2 homestand against the top two teams record-wise in the IL exceeded expectations. They scored just twice in 11 innings against Durham pitching on Sunday, and totaled a mere five runs in the first two games of the series.

“Obviously, we had our chances today, so you have to tip your cap to them for doing a good job,” Canzler said. “At the same time, it’s just one of those things where we just came out flat offensively. We couldn’t get anything going. But what are you going to do? You’ve got to try to keep things in perspective, and we did have a really good homestand. Unfortunately, we didn’t finish it out the way we wanted to.”

Likely a candidate to be promoted to New York and assume the Yankees’ long reliever’s role once Alfredo Aceves steps into the rotation for injured CC Sabathia, Chase Whitley cruised through the first inning on seven pitches. Monday’s scheduled starter, Brian Gordon, relieved him in the second and gave the RailRiders a solid six innings on the hill.

The only two runs he allowed came courtesy of former Yankees infielder Wilson Betemit, a veteran who homered into the first row in right leading off the fourth, then punched a single to right that brought Cole Figueroa home with two out in the fifth to put the Bulls ahead 2-0.

Gordon scattered seven hits and walked four, but he was able to escape several jams -- bases loaded and one out in the fourth and two on with one out in the seventh being the biggest -- to keep the RailRiders close.

“I will take it,” Gordon said. “Any time you can come out with baserunners left on base, that’s the big goal. Obviously you’d like to prevent the baserunners from getting on base, but sometimes you can’t control that. Today was one of those days I battled.”

The RailRiders won most of their battles over the past eight days, but in the one they needed on Monday, it was Durham that came out with its hand raised.

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